by Gene Wolfe
"There's buildings across the street as high as the wall, Maytera, and one just a little up the street that's higher. I think we ought to have people in there to shoot at the men on the wall. Some of mine that don't have needlers or slug guns could be on the roofs, too, throwing stones like the messenger talked about. A chunk of shiprock falling that far ought to hit as hard as a slug, and these Hoppies have got armor."
Maytera Mint nodded again. "You're right. I'm putting you in charge of that. Get some people-not just your own, some of the older boys and girls particularly-busy right away carrying stones and bricks up there. There must be plenty around after the fires.
"Lime, Your women are no longer fighters unless they've got needlers or slug guns. We need people to get our wounded out of the fight and take care of them. They can use their knives or whatever they have on anyone who tries to interfere with them. And that woman with the pitchfork? Go get her. I want to talk to her."
A fragment of broken plaster caught Maytera Mint's eye. "Now, Bison, look here." Picking it up, she scratched two widely spaced lines on the fire-blackened wall behind her. "This is Cage Street." With speed born of years of practice, she sketched in the Alambrera and the buildings facing it.
There was still a good deal of cedar left, and the fire on the altar had not quite gone out. Silk heaped fresh wood on it and let the wind fan it for him, sparks streaking Sun Street.
Quetzal had taken charge of Musk's corpse, arranging it decently beside Maytera Rose's coffin. Maytera Marble, who had gone to the cenoby for a sheet, had not yet returned.
"He was the most evil man I've ever known." Silk had not intended to speak aloud, but the words had come just the same. "Yet I can't help feeling sorry for him, and for all of us, as well, because he's gone."
Quetzal murmured, "Does you credit, Patera Caldé," and wiped the blade of the manteion's sacrificial knife, which he had rescued from the dust.
Vaguely, Silk wondered when he had dropped it. Maytera Rose had always taken care of it, washing and sharpening it after each sacrifice, no matter how minor; but Maytera Rose was gone, as dead as Musk.
After he had cut the sign of addition in Villas's ankle, of course, when he had knelt to suck out the poison.
When he had met Blood on Phaesday, Blood had said that he had promised someone-had promised a woman-that he would pray at this manteion for her. Suddenly Silk knew (without in the least understanding how he knew) that the "woman" had been Musk. Was Musk's spirit lingering in the vicinity of Musk's body and prompting him in some fashion? Whispering too softly to be heard? Silk traced the sign of addition, knowing that he should add a prayer to Thelxiepeia, the goddess of magic and ghosts, but unable to do so.
Musk had bought the manteion for Blood with Blood's money; and Musk must have felt, in some deep part of himself that all his evil actions had not killed, that he had done wrong-that he had by his purchase offended the gods. He had asked Blood to pray for him, or perhaps for them both, in the manteion that he had bought; and Blood had promised to do it.
Had Blood kept his promise?
"If you'd help with the feet, Patera Caldé?" Quetzal was standing at the head of Maytera Rose's coffin.
"Yes, of course, Your Cognizance. We can carry that in."
Quetzal shook his head. "We'll lay it on the sacred fire, Patera Caldé. Cremation is allowed when burial is impractical. If you would…?"
Silk picked up the foot of the coffin, finding it lighter than he had expected. "Shouldn't we petition the gods, Your Cognizance? On her behalf?"
"I already have, Patera Caldé. You were deep in thought. Now then, as high as you can, then quickly down upon the fire. Without dropping it, please. One, two, three!"
Silk did as he was told, then stepped hurriedly away from the lengthening flames. "Possibly we ought to have waited for Maytera, Your Cognizance."
Quetzal shook his head again. "This way is better, Patera Caldé. It would be better for you to keep from looking at the fire, too. Do you know why coffins have that peculiar shape, by the way? Look at me, Patera Caldé."
"To allow for the shoulders, Your Cognizance, or so I've heard."
Quetzal nodded. "That's what everyone's told. Would this sibyl of yours need extra room for her shoulders? Look at me, I said."
Already the thin, stained wood was blackening honestly, charring as the flames that licked it brought forth new flames. "No," Silk said, and looked away again. (It was strange to think that this bent, bald old man was in fact the Prolocutor.) "No, Your Cognizance. Nor would most women, or many men."
There was a stench of burning flesh.
"They do it so that we, the living, will know at which end the head lies, when the lid's on. Coffins are sometimes stood on end, you see. Patera!"
Silk's gaze had strayed to the fire again. He turned away and covered his eyes.
"I would have saved you that if I could," Quetzal told him, and Maytera Marble, arriving with the sheet, inquired, "Saved him from what, Your Cognizance?"
"Saved me from seeing Maytera Rose's face as the flames consumed it," Silk told her. He rubbed his eyes, hoping that she would think he had been rubbing them before, that he had gotten smoke in them.
She held out one end of the sheet. "I'm sorry I took so long, Patera. I-I happened to see my reflection. Then I looked for Maytera Mint's mirror. My cheek is scratched."
Silk took corners of the sheet in tear-dampened fingers; the wind tried to snatch it from him, but he held it fast. "So it is, Maytera. How did you do it?"
"I have no idea!"
To his surprise, Quetzal lifted Musk's half-consumed body easily. Clearly, this venerable old man was stronger than he appeared. "Spread it flat and hold it down," he told them. "We'll lay him on it and fold it over him."
A moment more, and Musk, too, rested among the flames.
"It's our duty to tend the fire until both have burned. We don't have to watch, and I suggest we don't." Quetzal had positioned himself between Silk and the altar. "Let us pray privately for the repose of their spirits."
Silk shut his eyes, bowed his head, and addressed himself to the Outsider, without much confidence that this most obscure of gods heard him or cared about what he said, or even existed.
"And yet I know this." (His lips moved, although no sound issued from them.) "You are the only god for me. It is better for me that I should give you all my worship, though you are not, than that I should worship Echidna or even Kypris, whose faces l have seen. Thus I implore your mercy on these, our dead. Remember that I, whom once you signally honored, ought to have loved them both but could not, and so failed to provide the impetus that might have brought them to you before Hierax claimed them. Mine therefore is the guilt for any wrong they have done while they have known me. I accept it, and pray you will forgive them, who burn, and forgive me also, whose fire is not yet lit. Obscure Outsider, be not angry with us, though we have never sufficiently honored you. All that is outcast, discarded, and despised is yours. Are this man and this woman, who have been neglected by me, to be neglected by you as well? Recall the misery of our lives and their deaths. Are we never to find rest? I have searched my conscience, Outsider, to discover that in which l have displeased you. I find this: That I avoided Maytera Rose whenever I could, though she might have been to me the grandmother I have never known; and that I hated Musk, and feared him too, when he had not done me the least wrong. Both were yours, Outsider, as I now see; and for your sake I should have been loving with both. I renounce my pride, and I will honor their memories. This I swear. My life to you, Outsider, if you will forgive this man and this woman whom we burn today."
Opening his eyes he saw that Quetzal had already finished, if he had ever prayed. Soon Maytera Marble raised her head as well, and he inquired, "Would Your Cognizance, who knows more about the immortal gods than anyone else in the whorl, instruct me regarding the Outsider? Though he's enlightened me, as I informed your coadjutor, I would be exceedingly grateful if you could tell me more."
"No, Your Cognizance." Silk looked nervously at Maytera Marble.
"I didn't, Your Cognizance. But I saw the Holy Hues and heard her voice, and it made me wonderfully happy. I remember that she exhorted all of us to purity and confirmed Scylla's patronage, nothing else. Can you tell me what else she said?"
"She told your sib to overthrow the Ayuntamiento. Let that be enough for you, Maytera, for the present."
"Maytera Mint? But she'll be killed!"
Quetzal's shoulders rose and fell. "I think we can count on it, Maytera. Before Kypris manifested here on Scylsday, the Windows of our city had been empty for decades. I can't take credit for that, it wasn't my doing. But I've done everything in my power to prevent theophanies. It hasn't been much, but I've done what I could. I proscribed human sacrifice, and got it made law, for one thing. I admit I'm proud of that."
He turned to Silk. "Patera Caldé, you wanted to know if I protested when the Ayuntamiento failed to hold an election to choose a new Caldé. You were right to ask, more right than you knew. If a new Caldé had been elected when the last died, we wouldn't have had that visit from Echidna today."
"If Your Cognizance-"
"No, I want to tell you. There are many things you have to know as Caldé, and this is one. But the situation wasn't as simple as you may think. What do you know about the Charter?"
"Next to nothing, Your Cognizance. We studied when I was a boy-that is to say, our teacher read it to us and answered our questions. I was ten, I think."
Maytera Marble said, "We're not supposed to teach it now. It was dropped from all the lesson plans years ago."
"At my order," Quetzal told them, "when even mentioning it became dangerous. We have copies at the Palace, however, and I've read it many times. It doesn't say, Patera Caldé, that an election must be held on the death of the Caldé, as you seem to believe. What it really says is that the Caldé is to hold office for life, that he may appoint his successor, and that a successor is to be elected if he dies without havmg done it. You see the difficulty?"
Uneasily, Silk glanced up and down the street, seeing no one near enough to overhear. "I'm afraid not, Your Cognizance. That sounds quite straightforward to me."
"It does not say that the Caldé must announce his choice, you'll notice. If he wants to keep it secret, he can do it. The reasons are so obvious I hesitate to explain them."
Silk nodded. "I can see that it would put them both in an uncomfonable position."
"In a very dangerous one, Patera Caldé. Partisans of the successor might assassinate the Caldé, while those who'd hoped to become Caldé would be tempted to murder the successor. When the last Caldé's will was read, it was found to designate a successor. I remember the exact wording. It said, 'Though he is not the son of my body, my son will succeed me.' What do you make of that?"
Silk stroked his cheek. "It didn't name this son?"
"No. I've given you the entire clause. The Caldé had never married, as I should have told you sooner. As far as anybody knew, he had no sons."
Maytera Marble ventured, "I never knew about this, Your Cognizance. Didn't the son tell them?"
"Not that I know of. It's possible he did and was killed secretly by Lemur or one of the other councillors, but I doubt it." Quetzal selected a long cedar split and poked the sinking fire. "If they'd done that, I'd have heard about it by this time. Probably much sooner. No public announcement was made, you understand. If there'd been one, pretenders would have put themselves forward and made endless trouble. The Ayuntamiento searched in secret. To be frank, I doubt that the boy would have lived if they'd found him."
Silk nodded reluctantly.
"If it had been a natural son, they could've used medical tests. As it was, the only hope was turn up a record. The monitors of every glass that could be located were queried. Old documents were read and reread, and the Caldé's relatives and associates interrogated, all without result. An election should have been held, and I urged one repeatedly because I was afraid we'd have a theophany from Scylla unless something was done. But an election would have been illegal, as I had to admit. The Caldé had designated his successor. They simply couldn't find him."
"Then I'll have no right to office if it's forced on me."
"Hardly. In the first place, that was a generation ago. It's likely the adopted son's dead if he ever existed. In the second, the Charter was written by the gods. It's a document expressing their will regarding our governance nothing more. It's clear they're displeased with the present state of things, and you're the only alternative, as Maytera told you."
Quetzal handed the sacrificial knife to Maytera Marble. "I think we can go now, Maytera. You must stay. Watch the fire until it goes out. When it does, carry the ashes into your manteion and dispose of them as usual. You may notice bones or teeth among them. Don't touch them, or treat them differently from the rest of the ashes in any way."
Maytera Marble bowed.
"Purify the altar as usual. If you can get people to help you, take it back into the manteion. Your Sacred Window, too."
She bowed again. "Patera has already instructed me to do so, Your Cognizance."
"Fine. You're a good sensible woman, Maytera, as I said. I was glad to see that you had resumed your coif when you went back to your cenoby. You've my permission to enter the manse. There's an old woman there. I think you'll find she's well enough to go home. There's a boy on one of the beds upstairs. You can leave him there or carry him into your cenoby to nurse, if that will be more convenient. See to it that he doesn't exert himself, and that he drinks a lot of water. Get him to eat, if you can. You might cook some of this meat for him."
Quetzal turned to Silk. "I want to look in on him again, Patera, while Maytera's busy with the fire. I'm also going to borrow a spare robe I saw up there, your acolyte's, I suppose. It looked too short for you, but it should fit me, and when we meet the rebels-perhaps we should call them servants of the Queen of the Whorl, some such. When we meet them, it may help if they know who I am as well as who you are."
Silk said, "I feel certain Patera Gulo would want you to have anything that can be of any assistance whatsoever to you, Your Cognizance."
As Quetzal tottered away, Maytera Marble asked, "Are you going to help Maytera Mint, Patera? You'll be in frightful danger, both of you. I'll pray for you."
"I'm much more worried about you than about myself," Silk told her. "More, even, than I am about her-she must be under Echidna's protection, in spite of what His Cognizance said."
Maytera Marble lifted her head in a slight, tantalizing smile. "Don't fret about me. Maytera Marble's taking good care of me." Unexpectedly, she brushed his cheek with warm metal lips. "If you should see my boy Bloody, tell him not to worry either. I'll be all right."
"I certainly will, Maytera." Silk took a hasty step back. "Good-bye, Maytera Rose. About those tomatoes-I'm sorry, truly sorry about everything. I hope you've forgiven me."
"She passed away yesterday, Patera. Didn't I tell you?"
"Yes," Silk mumbled. "Yes, of course."
Auk lay on the floor of the tunnel. He was tired-tired and weak and dizzy, he admitted to himself. When had he slept last? Dayside on Molpsday, after he'd left Jugs and Patera, before he went to the lake, but he'd slept on the boat a dog's right before the storm. Her and the butcher had been tired, too, tireder than him though they hadn't been knocked on the head. They'd helped in the storm, and Dace was dead. Urus hadn't done anything, would kill him if he got the chance. He pictured Urus standing over him with a bludgeon like the one he had seen, and sat up and stared around him.
Urus and the soldier were talking quietly. The soldier called, "I'm keeping an eye out. Go back to sleep, trooper."
Auk lay down again, though no soldier could be a
friend to somebody like him, though he'd sooner trust Urus though he didn't trust Urus at all.
What day was it? Thelxday. Phaesday, most likely. Grim Phaea, for food and healing. Grim because eating means killing stuff to eat, and it's no good pretending it don't. Stuff like Gelada'd killed Dace with his bad arm and the string around his neck. That's why you ought to go to manteion once in a while. Sacrifice showed you, showed the gray ram dying and its blood thrown in the fire, and poor people thanking Phaea or whatever god it was for "this good food." Grim because healing hurts more than dying, the doctor cuts you to make you well, sets the bone and it hurts. Dace said a bone in his head was broken, was cracked or something, he was cracked for sure and it was probably true because he got awful dizzy sometimes, couldn't see good sometimes, even stuff right in front of him. A white ram, Phaea, if I get over this.
It should've been a black ram. He'd promised Tartaros a black ram, but the only one in the market had cost more than he had, so he'd bought the gray one. That was before last time, before Kypris had promised them it'd be candy, before the ring for Jugs, the anklet for Patera. It had been why his troubles started, maybe, because his ram had been the wrong color. They dyed those black rains anyhow…
Up the tree and onto the roof, then in through the attic window, but he was dizzy, dizzy and the tree already so high its top touched the shade, brushed the shaggy shade with dead leaves rustling, rustling, and the roof higher, Urus whistling, whistling from the corner because the Hoppies were practically underneath this shaggy tree now.
He stood on a limb, walked out on it watching the roof sail away with all the black peaked roofs of Limna as the old man's old boat put out with Snarling Scylla at the helm, Scylla up in Jugs's head not taking up room but pulling her strings, jerking her on reins, digging spurred heels in, Spurred Scylla a gamecock spurring Jugs to make her trot. A little step and another and the roof farther than ever, higher than the top of the whole shaggy tree and his foot slipped where Gelada's blood wet the slick silvery bark and he fell.
